Dr. Adam Gazzaley

The world’s leading expert on how our brains are affected by distractions and multitasking. Founder and Executive Director of Neuroscape, a UCSF state-of-the-art neuroscience center and an award-winning professor of neurology, physiology, and psychiatry at UCSF.

​Adam Gazzaley Profile

Dr. Gazzaley is the Founder and Executive Director of Neuroscape, a UCSF state-of-the-art neuroscience center and an award-winning professor of neurology, physiology, and psychiatry at UCSF. For the past decade, Dr. Gazzaley has been pioneering research on how customized video games and VR products could be used to treat disorders like ADHD, depression, and dementia.

Dr. Gazzaley is arguably the world’s leading expert on how our brains are affected by distractions and multitasking.​World-class neuroscientist and neurologist, Dr. Adam Gazzaley is working to turn video games and other technology into medical treatments for conditions like dementia, depression, and pediatric ADHD. He teaches neurology, physiology and psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, and is the Founder and Executive Director of Neuroscape, a UCSF state-of-the-art neuroscience center where he and his team are pioneering an entirely new field of medicine – digital medicine.

Dr. Gazzaley collaborated with Lucas Arts to build a video game that would target players’ cognitive abilities. In 2013, he and his team were featured on the cover of Nature magazine when they published a study showing that playing such games could significantly turn around age-related cognitive decline. He is cofounder and Chief Science Advisor of Akili, a prescription digital medicine company which is currently conducting FDA trials using evolved versions of the prototype game Dr. Gazzaley’s team developed.

Dr. Gazzaley’s research and teaching has earned him numerous awards, including the 2015 Society for Neuroscience – Science Educator Award. His MIT Press book, The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World, co-authored with Dr. Larry Rosen, was the recipient of the 2017 PROSE Award. Additionally, Dr. Gazzaley wrote and hosted the nationally televised PBS special, The Distracted Mind with Dr. Adam Gazzaley which examines how multitasking influences our safety, our memory, our education, our careers and our personal lives. He is the author of over 130 scientific articles and has presented at over 600 events.

​Adam Gazzaley's Speaking Topics

Dr. Adam Gazzaley is arguably the world’s foremost expert on how our brains are affected by distractions and multitasking. His decades of groundbreaking research are the foundation of a potential new medical field in which specially designed videos games and other technologies could supplement or even replace pharmaceuticals in the treatments of depression, memory loss, ADHD, and other similar conditions. Using visual aides, Dr. Gazzaley immerses you inside the brain and his cutting edge studies so that you will better understand how our minds work and how we can use technologies like video games and VR to boost our brain function.

Technology meets Neuroscience - A Vision of the Future of Brain OptimizationA fundamental challenge of modern society is the development of effective approaches to enhance brain function and cognition in both the healthy and impaired. For the healthy, this should be a core mission of our educational system and for the cognitively impaired this is should be a primary goal of our medical system. Unfortunately, neither of these systems have effectively met this challenge.

• Dr. Gazzaley presents a novel approach he developed at UCSF Neuroscape that uses custom- designed video games to achieve meaningful and sustainable cognitive enhancement via personalized closed-loop systems.

The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World Our increasingly information-saturated world, coupled with growing expectations of constantavailability and immediate responsiveness, place excessive demands on our brains. Theconsequences are detrimental effects on our safety, health, education, workplace, andrelationships with family and friends.

Dr. Gazzaley takes us on a journey into how and why we struggle with interruptions anddistractions that emerge from both our inner and outer worlds. He will present a uniqueevolutionary perspective that the very essence of what has evolved in our brains to make us mosthuman collides headfirst with our brain’s limitations in cognitive control.

Key Takeaways:He concludes by offering practical strategies for modifying our behavior, as well as the latestinnovations from his research in enhancing our brain's function, so that we can better survive andthrive in the information age.

Raging against Aging: The Future of Brain Optimization and LongevityOne of the greatest achievements of modern times has been to dramatically increase thelongevity of our species. While this is a cause for celebration, it should be recognized that it hasresulted in numerous challenges to maintain quality of life due to a near ubiquitous decline incognitive function with aging.

In this Keynote Dr. Gazzaley describes the latest research on the aging brain and the challenges faced by an increasingly older population on a global level.

Key Takeaways:He shares practical advice on how to retain our cognition as we age, as well as a novel approachthat he has been developing to use cutting-edge technology (custom-designed video games,artificial intelligence, brain stimulation, and Virtual reality) to achieve meaningful and sustainablecognitive enhancement throughout our lives.

The Promise of Virtual Reality and the BrainThe long-awaited arrival of virtual and augmented reality is upon us. Consumer availableproducts hold seemingly infinite promise in changing communication, entertainment andcommerce. But what about our brains?

Dr. Gazzaley takes us on a deep dive into how virtual and augmented reality technologies can behelp enhance our cognition, with benefits to our memory, attention, decision-making and evenempathy and compassion.

Key Takeaways:In this context of improving cognition, he discusses the potential educational and medical uses forthese powerful new technologies.

The Cognition CrisisOur lives on this planet have improved in so many amazing ways over the last century. Onaverage we are now healthier, less poor, more literate, less violent and longer living. Despitethese positive changes, signs are present that we are in the midst of an emerging crisis. This is acrisis of our minds – a cognition crisis.

Dr. Gazzaley presents his latest perspectives on the difficulties we humans are currently facing interms of our attention, perception, creativity, emotional regulation and compassion. Anxiety,depression, attention deficits and dementia affect a half a billion people around the world with aneconomic toll in the trillions. And these numbers are rising, notably in our children.

Key Takeaways:He proposes that the goal of enhancing cognition should be positioned as a grand challenge, andplaced on par with other pressing global priorities. He concludes with a presentation of potentialsolutions using modern day technology.

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